Oreo Won the Real Time Marketing Super Bowl

Nabisco’s Oreo opted out of real time brand commentary during yesterday’s Super Bowl. That decision was one of the smartest plays of the game.

Super Bowl 48 didn’t kill Real Time Marketing, but hopefully many brands will rethink their strategy going into the Olympics, the Oscars and the World Cup. Yesterday saw too many attempts at funny and forced relevance.

In 2013, Oreo made waves with a casual, perfectly timed Tweet in response to the power going out in the stadium.

Many brands tried to replicate Oreo’s success, but their efforts often felt forced, mean spirited or just hacky.

I envision war rooms filled with pizza, beer, TV screens and laptops filled with young eager social media experts all trying to come up with the next great remark and feeling a lot of pressure to be the funniest guy in the room.

There were a few successful endeavors didn’t try to force their way into the action. They focused on original content that was timely, relevant, but not reactionary.

For example, @smartcar designed a 12th man car and posted pictures of it around Seattle, while at the same time showing how easy it is to find parking in a crowded stadium lot.

Unfortunately, they also made some poor attempts at making fun of Joe Namath’s coat — something that felt too easy, too forced and mean spirited.

Another example of forcing the conversation was the Twitter handle for the new @CaptainAmerica movie. The Tweets went oddly back and forth from first person commentary (in the third person) from Captain America “Unnecessary roughness, the Captain doesn’t not approve,” to discussion about the movie from a studio or brand perspective.

By staying out of the discussion Oreo didn’t succumb to the pressure to try to top last year and force funny. The other brands that created positive impact on social media are the ones who provided relevant content natural to the brand and seemingly organic or just purely supportive. Some brands like Microsoft (client), Radio Shack and Expedia (client), kept their social media efforts focused on their ad campaign during the game or to celebrate their favorite team.